High-quality color graphics for your mechatronic creation are just a serial port away. Microchip’s new P32MX microcontrollers have six serial ports to choose from. This month we’ll use one of them to drive a 4D Labs ?OLED-128-G1 Display Module.

Columns

GeerHeadby David GeerArtificial Intelligence Brings Humanoid Robots to Life (Part Deux)
It is not so much the practicality of humanoid robots that drives interest in their development as it is the familiarity, sources say. “People are interested in things that are anthropomorphic. This makes interaction with [humanoid] robots easier,” says James J. Kuffner, PhD, associate professor of the Robotics Institute at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.

Then and Nowby Tom CarrollA Brief Look at Service Robots
Let’s look at the service category, which can include sub-categories of personal and consumer robots (toys, vacuum cleaner robots, etc.), military and defense robots, security robots, academic and research robots, healthcare and hospital robots, and a vast array of remotely-operated vehicles.

Mind/Iron

3D printing has become so good that the printed prototypes outlive their usefulness. Most of my 3D printed plastic prototypes serve their purpose for perhaps five minutes and then end up in landfills along with lots of empty filament spools. ABS plastic and even so-called biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) will probably survive decades in the environment. Isn’t it time to find ways to repurpose this technology to decrease its footprint?